an oxymoron v. a redundancy (drunken sailors: part 9)
posted by CS | 11:00 AM 
big-government conservative versus small-government conservative: an oxymoron versus a redundancy.
Terrence Jeffrey had a good piece last week on Mike Pence and THE CONSERVATIVE movement on Capitol Hill. the gist of the article, other praising Pence and chiding Fred Barnes indirectly, is that a loyal republican these days is a spendthrift, a "big-government conservative".
the primary difference these days between loyal democrats and republicans is that the former best fit the phrase "tax and spend" while the latter, simply "spend". logically, the former makes more sense, for it at least has a chance of balancing the books. the latter is far more irresponsible - as anyone recovering from years of profligate spending via credit card debt can tell you.
i can't believe that i, as a fiscal conservative, would support higher taxes - but if it meant actually balancing the books and paying down the federal debt (hovering at $8 trillion), i might. of course, i'd prefer a more radical approach: scrap the IRS, sell-off federal assets, divest of public entitlement programs (privatizing them) - that is, trim the federal budge to perhaps a third of its current size. but that ain't gonna happen.
anytime soon, that is.
Terrence Jeffrey had a good piece last week on Mike Pence and THE CONSERVATIVE movement on Capitol Hill. the gist of the article, other praising Pence and chiding Fred Barnes indirectly, is that a loyal republican these days is a spendthrift, a "big-government conservative".
the primary difference these days between loyal democrats and republicans is that the former best fit the phrase "tax and spend" while the latter, simply "spend". logically, the former makes more sense, for it at least has a chance of balancing the books. the latter is far more irresponsible - as anyone recovering from years of profligate spending via credit card debt can tell you.
i can't believe that i, as a fiscal conservative, would support higher taxes - but if it meant actually balancing the books and paying down the federal debt (hovering at $8 trillion), i might. of course, i'd prefer a more radical approach: scrap the IRS, sell-off federal assets, divest of public entitlement programs (privatizing them) - that is, trim the federal budge to perhaps a third of its current size. but that ain't gonna happen.
anytime soon, that is.
2 Comments:
Or how about cutting all the spending on welfare altogether? That should be a good chunk of money there. As I wrote about in another forum in response to this article:
http://tiadaily.com/php-bin/news/showArticle.php?id=1026
Just 2 cents on the welfare state...First of all, I understand there are people who need help, and are unable to work for various reasons or need help to make ends meet. However, I feel that welfare, although it had good intentions, has become one of the worst enabling--and entitling--institutions that the government has created. (in part, I think, responsible for the looting "attitudes" that they "deserved" this stuff for free...) Besides, I feel that it's not the government's job to support everyone with taxpayer money--that's the crowd that the church was called to minister to--the widows, the orphans, the poor, etc. Unfortunately, the church has stepped back in its duty and let the government take over. I also had come across this article that I posted on my blog re: Katrina (http://rantingspoo.blogspot.com/2005/09/on-hurricane-katrina.html), that if these people had been taught the moral foundations that the church would have been responsible for if they had been caring for these people rather than the government, then the situation might not have gotten so out of control as it had: http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/printer-friendly.asp?ARTICLE_ID=46086 I do think this author hit the nail on the head, as un-PC-ish as it is these days...
good point, queen_spoo. it brings up a darn good question, if i don't mind saying so - "what is welfare spending?"
are we talking unemployment checks, food stamps and the like or something philosophically more pervasive such as "any compensation rendered unto one who, with effort, can render it unto himself"?
i like your point about the church. however, is it any wonder the church is shirking its historic responsibilities to individuals in need? what with the erroneous "wall of seperation" notion floating about in the public unconsciousness, like some unwelcome zeitgeist.
people largely do not approach churches for help these days. as a deacon of a church in the richmond area, i am privy to some of the requests that come into our church and while we get some, they are relatively few for the needs that exist in our community. the perception among many (most?) is that it's the government's responsibility to take care of their immediate needs.
which brings up another point - WHICH government? local, state, or federal? defaulting to the federal gov't for the path to a solution is the most inefficient choice possible. there is but one primary reason (at a personal level) why this path is chosen: pride. it is the most anonymous path.
yet the most efficient path is that closest to home, which tends to be the most humbling.
this is not a bad thing.
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